1st Gen Best/worst part of Kanto games

RBY: Being able to get all three starters in Yellow is cool but otherwise the gameplay is far too outdated to motivate me to replay them

FRLG: VS Seeker helps massively with grinding for both Exp and money, however not being able to evolve Golbat into Crobat before beating the Elite 4 is just stupid

LGPE: Only mainline game I have never bothered to finish, catching mechanic is infuriating and I am not buying new joy cons just to go through that torture again
 
RBY
  • Best: Different mechanics, like tying Speed to critical chance and Special as one stat. Gives it a niche.
  • Worst: The level curve. Flooded mid-game Kanto with mid 20s regular trainers, but major trainers at high 30s/low 40s. Only widens as the game goes on.

Fire Red / Leaf Green
  • Best: Good variety, in terms of mechanics and environments, without feeling too long (minus maybe the caves). Feels distinct from each other, but still cohesive. Contrasts with something like a Mario game with Volcano World next to Ice World.
  • Worst: Still the level curve. Solved some of the leveling problem with the Vs Seeker and Sevii Islands. Spends a lot of time at the Ninetales/Rapidash double battle every playthrough, however.
 
Best: The introduction to the seried was done amazingly well. A great setup for the franchise.

Worst: Some broken mechanics and Psychics being OP due to lack of good moves to deal with them.

FR/LG:

Best: Fixed a lot of mechanical issues and improved several performance issues the original ganes had.

Worst: The Vs Seeker and Sevii Islands.

LGPE:

Best: Graphics are good and you cna catch every Kanto starter.

Worst: The EXP share
 
LeadRain said:
Best: The introduction to the seried was done amazingly well. A great setup for the franchise.

Worst: Some broken mechanics and Psychics being OP due to lack of good moves to deal with them.

FR/LG:

Best: Fixed a lot of mechanical issues and improved several performance issues the original ganes had.

Worst: The Vs Seeker and Sevii Islands.

LGPE:

Best: Graphics are good and you cna catch every Kanto starter.

Worst: The EXP share
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I've never heard anyone say the sevii islands and vs seeker are the worst part of the game. Care to elaborate? I'm curious as to why you think that
 
Overall Kanto pros:
Kanto is a rich region with lots of different dungeons and locations that make the game stand out while also not feeling like a drag. It manages to somehow strike a balance between having enough roadblocks and areas to go through while being a well paced adventure. I never reach more than 30 hours playing the game unless I am grinding or looking for specific Pokémon. In fact my fastest time was about 18 hours.

Overall Kanto cons:
Pokémon variety is questionable. There are lots of poison and water types for no real reason; but why is there only 1 ghost and 1 dragon Pokémon each? Why are fire types rare if they are considered a main type to choose from (common complaint from gens 1-5). Why are there a handful of Pokémon that just suck? Like Lickitung, Dewgong, Pidgeot, Golduck, and Beedrill? These Pokémon are replaceable by something much stronger either earlier in-game or in the same location! This is honestly why I'd rather not have the Kanto line up return in later games because later gens have better lineups.

Gen 1 pros:
The glitches make the game more fun and interesting like the trainer fly glitch allowing you to obtain lots of pokemon early, or are otherwise unobtainable (like Mew). The badge boosting glitch allows you to take down the elite four with underpowered teams as long as you remember to switch out after leveling up.

Gen 1 cons:
Balance approach is have little to no balance checks. Psychic types are only OP because of a bug regarding ghost type moves dealing zero damage and there being only 2 bug moves that hit psychic super effective (and both suck). Normal types are also OP and left unchecked because fighting types are the worst typing in this gen. Hi Jump Kick? Only on Hitmonlee. Submission? 80 accuracy and 1/4 recoil. Your only options are double kick and low kick which both have very low damage and are rare.

Then there's the dated mechanics due to this being a huge game crammed into a tiny Game Boy cartridge. No running shoes so you are always walking. Limited inventory space as you have room for only 20 items total (the bicycle or the itemfinder for today?) Having to switch boxes before you fill them up. This one sucks as you have to constantly check the PC if you can even catch more Pokémon. Very little post game. You get Cerulean Cave and that's it. No rematches except the elite four. Might as well start over your save file.

Gen 3 remakes pros:
Sevii islands posts game is a treat along with the fact that there exist many quality of life changes. The VS Seeker allowing you to rematch trainers, running shoes to make the journey faster, boxes changing automatically when you fill them up, and of course, having a national dex to trade with Hoenn games.

Gen 3 remakes cons:
Given that gen 3 changed a lot from gen 1, the balancing is now all over the place. Some pokemon like tangela, Flareon, seadra, and Gyarados were made weaker because of the stat changes. While other pokemon like Weezing, Gengar, and Arcanine were made stronger. However, it seems that power creep made a lot of mons weaker while also making the elite four much harder. Like I need to have actual team building knowledge on how to beat the game. This sudden difficultly spike is why it took me many attempts to finally beat this game back when I was a kid. Gen 1 you can abuse the ai not having proper movesets and the badge boosting glitch, but here you really need to have proper team set up or else it's back to the grindstone.
 
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RBY:
Best: Persian's Slash was an almost guaranteed critical hit due to Critical rates being tied to Speed.

Worst: The Pikachu in Yellow. The thing kept fainting in every battle since its defenses were crap and it couldn't evolve, and its annoying cry and experessions in the overworld.

FR/LG:
Best: Leaf is the best overall character, let alone protagonist, that has ever come out of the franchise.

The Vs. Seeker was also awesome. In fact, these games as a whole were very good.

Worst: The other guy is the most overrated trainer character (at least in the games) that has ever come out of the franchise.

And the distribution of wild Pokemon wasn't improved over the originals (too many Pidgey and Rattata, too many late game areas with first-stage Pokemon, etc.) And why the hell are the Johto Pokemon in the Sevii Islands so ridiculously underleveled?

Let's Go:
Best: Uh... they didn't have massive, crippling bugs and glitches that bricked the Switch and wiped its data, I guess? Yeah... I'm really struggling to come up with anything besides "I suppose they actually worked" here.

Worst: The mere fact that these games were even made in the first place.

Overall, FR/LG are the only Kanto games that I can still play and actually enjoy. The originals are too outdated and glitchy, and Let's Go were cash-grab shovelware.
 
Rock_Salazar said:
Gen 3 remakes cons:
Given that gen 3 changed a lot from gen 1, the balancing is now all over the place. Some pokemon like tangela, Flareon, seadra, and Gyarados were made weaker because of the stat changes. While other pokemon like Weezing, Gengar, and Arcanine were made stronger. However, it seems that power creep made a lot of mons weaker while also making the elite four much harder. Like I need to have actual team building knowledge on how to beat the game. This sudden difficultly spike is why it took me many attempts to finally beat this game back when I was a kid. Gen 1 you can abuse the ai not having proper movesets and the badge boosting glitch, but here you really need to have proper team set up or else it's back to the grindstone.
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Suspects some other technical reasons for Fire Red / Leaf Green's Elite Four feeling so difficult, compared to other trainers in the game and in the originals. Covered the Special split already.

  1. Badge Boosts. Dropped from 12.5% in Generation 1/2 to 10% in Generation 3. Not a big deal. (Off the cuff: maybe one level's worth of difference.)

  2. Moveset changes. Gave the Generation 1 teams pretty awful movesets. Sees only Normal type moves on Lance's Aerodactyl AND Blue's Rhydon. Stuck poor Exeggutor with Stomp, Barrage, and Hypnosis. Appears to have just grabbed their level-up movesets and called it a day.

    Customized (some?) trainer movesets in Generation 3. Led to far better coverage. Only seems fair, given better level-up movesets and better in-game information. Also meant an actual Dragon move for Lance's Dragonite and a good Ghost move for Agatha's Gengars (which is physical, but still). Probably helped the AI more than the player, as the player may use TMs and pick moves more intelligently.

  3. Stat mechanic changes. Determined stats differently between the two games, beyond just the Special stat split.
    • Generation 1: DVs and stat experience.
    • Generation 3: IVs and Effort Values.

    Describes the two systems as pretty similar, in essence. Combines your Pokemon's unchanging, innate stats with stat boosts from defeating Pokemon in both systems.

    Applied them differently in the games, however.
    • Generation 1: Seemingly gave every single trainer (or all the major ones, at least) 8 DVs across the board, except for 9 DVs in Attack. Notes a range of 0-15 for DVs. Makes all trainer Pokemon a hair above average. No stat experience for any NPC Pokemon.
    • Generation 3: Forgets how the minor trainers shook out. Hamstrung all the gym leaders, however. Gave them 0 IVs and 0 EVs. Made them the absolute worst possible Pokemon, not counting any natures.

      Busted out the big guns for the Elite Four, however. Believes all of them to be 30/31 IVs and 0 EVs. Results in a huge stat swing from what you are accustomed to. How big? Take Dragonite here. Assumes a level 60 Dragonite with a neutral nature and 0 EVs. Approximated 18 IVs for RBY.
      Code: 
      0 IV Dragonite (FRLG Gym Leader):  179 HP, 165 Atk, 119 Def, 125 SpAtk, 125 SpDef, 101 Speed
18 IV Dragonite (RBY Trainer):     190 HP, 176 Atk, 129 Def, 135 SpAtk, 135 SpDef, 111 Speed
31 IV Dragonite (FRLG Elite Four): 197 HP, 184 Atk, 137 Def, 143 SpAtk, 143 SpDef, 119 Speed
0 IV Lvl 67 Dragonite (FRLG Gym):  198 HP, 184 Atk, 132 Def, 139 SpAtk, 139 SpDef, 112 Speed

      Amounts to roughly a 7 level swing at endgame. Essentially jumps up 17 levels from Giovanni's Rhyhorn ace to Lance's Dragonite ace, in terms of power. Created a big power inconsistency.

      Speaking of Giovanni, do you remember how nasty his Kangaskhan is in the Rocket Hideout and Silph Co? Guess why. Spoiler: 30 IVs across the board. (Brings 0 IVs weenies for the gym battle, however.)

    ____________
    Short version: Gained a decent amount of absolute power over Red/Blue, in the form of moveset and stat changes, AND a lot of relative power, in the form of a huge IV boost.
 
Worst part: typing diversity.
Grass+Poison redundancy, Rock+Ground redundancy, Normal+Flying redundancy. Poison type everywhere, Psychic type supremacy, lack of dual typing options for some types like Fire (you have either pure Fire or part Flying) or Fighting, which are all pure Fighting except Poliwrath.

Best part: the sense of adventure and region exploration. Plus having only a couple mandatory HMs makes it less annoying to navigate through than Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.
 
The best part of Kanto as a whole to me was easily the VS Seeker. I was obsessed with replaying the games and using it to get stronger, those exclamation marks when trainers wanted to battle was such a dopamine rush. So, that. :')

Being able to get all the starters in Yellow too! I could live out my childhood dream of pretending to be Ash.
 
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